Joe Liberman is a Shmuck.

What it up with Joe Lieberman? He's an Independent who caucuses with the Democrats but he behaves like a Republican, this is exemplified by a recent Fox Noise stunt of labeling him a Republican on one of their "News" shows. Generally Fox Noise only mislabels Republicans whom they feel are acting too "Liberal" hence you'll see a banner that says Olympia Snowe (D-Maine) when in fact she is an R-Maine, its a subtle bit of propaganda used to get the Fox Base to hate certain people by having them associated with being a Democrat, the reverse is also true. But Senator Lieberman who liked his job so much he ran as an Independent even after the Democratic voters of the Connecticut said they didn't want him to represent them anymore since they were tired of him acting like a Republican in the Democratic party, he ran as an Independent because he knew that he would never get elected as a Republican.

Now Senator Lieberman has been among the top Democrats (since he does caucus with them) who have been threatening to vote against Health Care Reform and allowing the Republicans to filibuster the bill. By the way this is the same Joe Lieberman who supported John McCain in the 2008 election, proving he's a snake in the grass who can't be trusted. Now somehow he did vote with the Democrats on Saturday night for cloture, allowing the Senate to actually talk about the bill. But today on Meet The Press he made it clear that he still will not vote for it saying that

I voted last night as 59 others did to go ahead with the debate because I want us to begin not only debating health care reform but doing something about health care reform. But I don't think anybody feels this bill, as Senator Reid put it down -- though he made a lot of progress blending bills together -- I don't think anybody thinks this bill will pass.

This is something that has been bothering me as of late, this idea that we need 60 votes to pass Health Care Reform. We don't need 60, we need 51, this whole push that we need 60 votes is bullshit, its more of the Right Wing pushing the goal line further back, not once did you hear Republicans talk about needing 60 votes in order to wage an illegal war, or to cut taxes, or to pass than not fund No Child Left Behind. But this is an aside back to Joe Lieberman.

Senator Lieberman goes on to explain his position.

I don't want to fix the problems in our health care system in a way that creates more of an economic crisis, either short-term to inhibit businesses from hiring more people, creating jobs, or long-term to add to the debt. And I'm convinced the public option, a government-run insurance company, basically people don't understand what it's going to do. It doesn't offer free insurance. It won't get one more poor person insurance. It won't force one insurance company to give insurance to somebody who has got a pre-existing condition. It won't even lower the cost of health insurance, which advocates said originally it would because the Congressional Budget Office has now said to us the public option in Senator Reid's bill will actually charge more for insurance than the average charge by health insurance companies. I'll tell you one thing I'm sure it will do, if we create a government insurance company, it's going to run a deficit and it's only the taxpayers that are going to pay for it. I don't want to do that.

That is why Joe Liberman is a schmuck. Now you maybe saying that those sound like reasonable reasons to not vote for this bill. They would be, until you realize that the watered down Public Option that is in the bill, that has all of these restrictions, is because of Joe Liberman and the other "Blue Dogs". The fact that it won't cover every person who doesn't have health insurance, is because they had to limit who would be eligible for it, and the premiums will be higher because the "Blue Dogs" and the Republicans have been pushing to make it deficit neutral. So the real reason Joe Liberman is a schmuck is because he's a hypocrite and a snake in the grass, who is selling not just the people of his state out, but selling us all out, so he can get more money from the Health Insurance Lobby.